Aliyya Swaby Photo
Organizing by smartphone Wednesday night on Crown Street.
Kristin Barber was a New Haven Republican for nine years, serving on the GOP Town Committee. On the busiest grassroots night so far in the 2016 presidential campaign, she joined crowds of New Haveners Wednesday launching local efforts to propel a socialist to the White House.
Barber, now a Democrat, was one of dozens of white — and a handful of non-white — Sanders supporters who showed up to watch a live broadcast of the Democratic presidential primary candidate’s speech at Pacific Standard Tavern at 212 Crown St. On Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., the Vermont senator reached tens of thousands of people (over 100,000 people RSVP’d) in about 3,500 organizing meetings nationwide — the start of an effort to build a grassroots machine to power his presidential bid. Time magazine called it the “biggest organizing event of 2016 so far.”
It was a big event in New Haven. Of almost 40 watching parties statewide, four took place in New Haven, the most in any Connecticut city. Besides the Pacific tavern party, three took place at the main public library branch and in private homes.
“Enough is enough,” Sanders said repeatedly in his speech, calling for a higher minimum wage, tuition-free public universities, single-payer health care system, and paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. An African-American woman, civil rights attorney Kemi Morton, introduced him in the video-transmitted speech.
Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont who usually runs for office as a third-party democratic socialist, has generated populist excitement across the country with his insurgent campaign, more than any other contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. He also faces obstacles as he prepares to face frontrunner Hilary Clinton in Democratic primaries. One of the most striking: his base is primarily white. Black voters, a major Democratic voting bloc, are unaware of his name or policies. He has been criticized for focusing on economic issues while ignoring their intersection with racial issues.
His primarily white appeal was visible at Pacific Standard Tavern Wednesday night. Almost all 50 supporters in the bar were white.
Paul Chhabra, a Shelton resident who organized the event, said Sanders “has gotten a pretty raw deal” and been unfairly targeted for his take on racial issues. “His record is perfect for human rights and civil rights,” he said.
At a liberal Netroots presidential forum in late July, Black Lives Matter activists rushed the stage and demanded Democratic candidates Sanders and Martin O’Malley directly address police brutality against black people. “If you don’t want me to be here, that’s OK,” Sanders told the activists, drawing criticism for failing to explicitly connect problems of economic inequality and racial inequality.
“They shouted him down,” Chhabra said of the incident. “That’s not fair because I consider him an ally. He had been speaking about those issues before and has spoken about them every since.”
Sanders’ problem, Chhabra said, is that he is “not known in the African American community. He comes from Vermont,” a mostly white state. “Not being known isn’t a crime. I wouldn’t like to see the waters poisoned before he gets a chance.”
Young people turned out for Sanders, who is using social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to spread the word about his message. During the broadcast Wednesday evening, his organizers urged people to text the word “Work” to a campaign number to receive more information on how to volunteer. And Chhabra asked Sanders supporters to put up photos from the event on social media sites with the tag #Bernie2016.
James Geiser and Tim Cyr started reading about Sanders’ policies on social networking site Reddit, on which he is “one of the most up-voted politicians,” Cyr said.
Cyr, who is 26, is studying to be a civil engineer and works downtown. Geiser, who is 23, also works downtown.
“This is the first [campaign] that I’ve followed closely,” Geiser said. He thinks Sanders can win, especially once the media “starts to give him the limelight…He could rise in the polls.”
Cyr agreed with his friend. “I don’t think [President Barack] Obama had this kind of grassroots following this early on in 2008,” he said.
Julie Cook encouraged her employer and friend Sissy McGehee to head to the organizing event with her Wednesday. Cook, who lives in West Haven, works as an in-home nurse for McGehee’s husband in Durham. The Sanders events in their towns were full when they tried to reserve spots, they said.
McGehee wore a shirt that read “Feel The Bern 2016” to celebrate having changed her voting registration from Independent to Democrat, so she could vote for Sanders in the primary. She said she was a “Hilary person” until Cook got her “hooked” on the progressive politician two months ago. “The more you get to know of him, you’re sold,” she said.
Cook said she believes in his stances on economic inequality, which she said is “backed up with 40 to 50 years of work.”
“I care for people who live in public housing to people who are living in mansions,” Cook said. “I see exactly how the game is rigged. I know how much pharmacies are charging patients. It’s disgusting. It’s rape of the people.”
When asked about the majority whiteness of his base of supporters, Cook said many people of color are likely to “dismiss him by what he looks like,” an old white man. “He’s from Vermont.”
As Sanders works to “get everybody” on board his campaign, “his message is broad,” she said. Even so, she pointed out, Sanders was the first candidate to speak out against the controversial arrest of Sandra Bland, a black woman who died in jail after a routine traffic stop.
“Bernie [Sanders] is the most apt person to be able to see everybody’s issue or put himself in everybody’s shoes,” she said.
Nick DeFiesta said he is unconvinced Sanders can speak to racial concerns effectively. He said he is “tentatively a Bernie Sanders supporter” but questions “how can he answer the immediacy of issues around race in America.”
“I used to be very Bernie-esque in my views,” DeFiesta said. He said he used to think “class was at the core” of most societal issues but has come to realize that race is at the center. DeFiesta, who is half Filipino and half white, said he was “raised very culturally white.”
Though Sanders’ record as an activist is strong, he likely “has authentically not had to think about” race, DeFiesta said.
In January, DeFiesta, a 2014 Yale graduate, hosted a “Ready for Warren” party to encourage Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run for president. Just eight people showed up, including a few of his co-workers, he said. Warren, the country’s leading critic of corporate financial misdeeds and income inequality, shares Sanders’ base of progressive supporters; she decided not to run for president.
DeFiesta is also excited about Clinton’s campaign and said he “respects Hilary’s experience. She “has spoken better on race that [Sanders] has,” he said. DeFiesta said Democrats have “two exciting choices,” though he said he is likely in the minority among Sanders supporters on that score.
Brandon Lawrence, who grew up around Edgewood Avenue, said he was one of just four black people at the organizing Sanders event at the main branch of the library. He said he agrees with Sanders that “economic issues are race issues” and that focusing on economic inequality “can lower racial inequality.”
Lawrence said many are not aware of Sanders’ long “civil rights history,” including his anti-segregation organizing in the 1960s. Sanders “put his money where his mouth is,” Lawrence said. “If anyone can do it, he can.”